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tv   PBS News Hour  PBS  February 4, 2011 3:00pm-4:00pm PST

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captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: good evening. i'm jim lehrer. we have two major stories tonight: the mostly peaceful protests in egypt as the u.s. and others push the egyptian government on reform; and the drop in the unemployment rate, despite sluggish job growth here at home. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, on egypt, we get the latest on the demonstrations from jonathon rugman of independent television news. and also from cairo, margaret warner interviews an opposition leader who has been in the city's central square. >> president mubarak has always been proud of being stubborn,
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not listening to the people, which i think is not really a great virtue for a president not to be able to listen to his own people. >> lehrer: and we assess what the u.s. can and cannot do to resolve the crisis. >> woodruff: then, jeffrey brown examines today's mixed report on job creation in the united states. >> lehrer: mark shields and david brooks analyze the week's news. >> woodruff: and we mark the centennial of the birth of former president reagan with a look at the strengths and skills of a powerful political team, ronald and nancy reagan. >> what my whole approach was based on the promise of a better america. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> you can't manufacture pride, but pride builds great cars. and you'll find it in the people at toyota, all across america.
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public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> lehrer: we begin with egypt, where vast crowds of protesters assembled in central cairo today. it was the latest attempt to force president hosni mubarak to resign, immediately. and there was growing talk of how to form a transitional government. but the prime minister, ahmed shafeek, said 95% of egyptians want mubarak to stay until a new president is elected in september. the scene on the streets was relatively peaceful, after two days of violence that saw 11 people killed and hundreds more wounded. we get that story from jonathan rugman of independent television news. >> reporter: itted is revolution, the crowd estimated at 200,000 today. mubarak is leaving, they
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sanging and we are still standing. the wounded are everywhere. hundreds injured in the last two days of fiingt. one mantlinging me his mother had ordered him to stay in the square until the president had left town. >> we want you to be a hero, yes. are you a hero? >> yes, i'm a hero. >> reporter: this afternoon we visited the protestors front line. readying for siege warfare of a primitive kind. a car on its side is now a barricade. a breadbasket ask serving as a catapult. the ground is littered with missiles thrown by opposing sides. on the ramparts more rocks are at the ready to repel all coppers. even the children are gearing up for battle. there were isolated clashes. but the president's
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supporter its are heavily outnumbered. far less organized than they were. and so far, unable to breach the square's defences. egyptian troops block all approach roads, holding small groups of mubarak loyalists back. we saw them firing into the air to scare them off. in the square itself there is no sign of compromise. hints by opposition leaders that mubarak could stay until september are utterly rejected here. >> mubarak is leaving. >> today egypt's defense minister visited the protestors. the government extending and olive branch, it seems, looking for a softly approach to end this crisis, though he did not speak to the crowd which busied itself with friday's prayers. >> woodruff: thousands of people also took to the streets of alexandria today. as in cairo, the crowds in egypt's second largest city were mostly peaceful. they carried anti-mubarak
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banners and chanted; some even sang the national anthem. demonstrators also turned out today in jordan and turkey, supporting the protesters in egypt. and in iran, the supreme leader, ayatollah khamenei, told friday worshippers that events in egypt are a sign of growing "islamic awareness" across the middle east. >> lehrer: behind the scenes, u.s. officials conferred with top egyptian officials today. and president obama talked of a transition that begins now. he spoke after meeting with canadian prime minister stephen harper at the white house. >> i believe that president mubarak care bses history country, he is crowd but he is also a patriot. and what i have suggested to him is that he needs to consult with those who are around him in his government. he needs to listen to what's being voiced by the egyptian
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people. and make a judgement about a pathway forward that is orderly. but that is meaningful and serious can. and i believe that he's already said that he's to the going to run for re-election. this is somebody whose's been in power for a very long time in egypt. having made that psychological break, that decision that he will not be running again, i think the most important for him to ask himself, for the egyptian government to ask itself as well as the opposition to ask itself is how do we make that transition effective, and lasting and legitimate. and as i said before, that's not a decision ultimately the united states makes or any country outside of egypt makes. what we can do, though, is affirm the core principleses that are going to be involved in that transition.
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if you end up having just gestures towards the opposition but it leads to a continuing suppression of the opposition, that's to the going to work. if you have a-- the pretense of reform but not real reform, that's not going to be effective. and as i said before, once the president himself announced that he was to the going to be running again and since his term is up, relatively shortly, the key question he should be asking himself is how do i leave a legacy behind in which egypt is able to get through this transform difficult period and my hope is that he will end up making the right decision. >> woodruff: margaret warner is in cairo and, today, she sat down with a key opposition figure, the writer wael nawara. he helped found the el ghad or "tomorrow" party, 17 years ago,
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along with another prominent activist, ayman nour. nawara was at today's demonstration at tahrir square and spoke with margaret afterwards. >> wale nawara, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> warner: this was billed today as the day of depar ture, the day that would force president mubarak to recognize he had to leave. as of this evening he is still in power. >> well, you know, it's very unfortunate that we-- stubborn before the weight of the people because at the end of the day the president is really a public servant and the people send this message clearly, loudly, many times, very assertive so i just hope that president mubarak realizes that he is actually putting the country's interests' in great risk. and that these unrests are upsetting the economy, they are upsetting security, they are causing a lot of of havoc and chaos.
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so we hope that he would get the message sooner rather than later. >> warner: but he said yesterday in an interview with christiane amanpour of abc that actually he was tired of being president. he would like to leave but he was afraid the country would descend into chaos as if he left abruptly. does he have a point? >> he always has been proud of being stubborn. look, listen to the people, which i think is not really a good virtue for a president not to be able to listen to his own people. so now he has appointed vice president soul iman. i think if-- soul i man, i if i if he makes it to vice president souliman i don't see why this could be a guilty situation. >> warner: are you saying ug could imagine a transition period where perhaps mubarak remained as president but delegated powers to his new vice president and they started this process of constitutional reform. >> i think it's very likely that the protestors and other opposition groups will find possibly this
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acceptable. but again, what i want to say is that president mubarak is always a few days behind. if he said that tuesday speech. >> warner: the one where he said he wasn't going to run in september. >> exactly. if he made that speech 8 days before, there would be no protest. i hope he realize that the more that he clings to power, the more people are becoming more disappointed and more also untrusting, so the way to do it really is to go now and try to get as close as possible to the people's demands now. and because for 30 years he has been making promises for reform and so on and so forth. >> warner: we read that there are quote opposition groups meeting with the new vice president sul i ma man-- souliman and i think the new prime minister. which groups make this meeting, who do they represent. >> he is really meetinging with the parties sanctioned by the committee which is presided on by an ndp-- .
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>> warner: that is the ruling party. >> yeah, that is the ruling party. so really he is meeting with this opposition parties which are loyal to the regime. so it's like-- this is kind of a monologue because he is kind of speaking to himself. he needs to recognize that the protest movement, which is represented by many groups. >> warner: and that's not happening now. >> we haven't seen that happening yet. we have seen a continuous approach of what we had seen before, that the regime wants to choose who governs but who the opposition is also. >> warner: now what is your concern that the muslim brotherhood is going to somehow take over. they are better organized, that they are going to become the face of the opposition. >> we have to realize that the regime always designed the situation like that, to have the-- it is either us or them, us being the rawling party, the ndp and them being the protestors and in the middle the regime
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made its best to crush all sort of other opposition. if we have elections today, i agree with you that we might-- president mubarak might be able to, especially if it is the parliament, they might get too many seats. too many seats, when i say too many, i mean that not representative of the people. so that's why we need a transition period to allow that process to prosper. >> warner: so what's the end game you foresee now? do you think the young people who have been the foundation of people in the square, that they are going to stay there until mubarak leaves? >> well, actually, i really think that we need to think of, you know, new ways of how to sustain it. maybe we go only once a week or maybe twice a week to the square. so we need to start thinking of ways to-- this with minimal collateral damage to the people who mubarak is holding hostage. he's holding our people, our
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folks, our families hostage with no money. running people out of cash, running people out of groceries. we have to be smart and start realizing we don't want to lose the popular support. we want to continue our movement but also take into consideration the interests of little people who depend, the taxi driver who has to pay the installment from his taxi so that he needs to work. we need to think of creative ways to sustain the movement while at the same time also allow our folks to you know, to breathe some air. >> warner: thank you so much. >> you're welcome. >> lehrer: we'll come back to egypt in >> lehrer: we'll come back to egypt in a few minutes. today's other main story-- the new jobless numbers. jeffrey brown handles that story. >> brown: on the one hand, the unemployment rate dropped; on the other, very few jobs were created. that was the news from two government reports today. the so-called "household survey" showed the unemployment rate dropped to 9% in january, down
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from 9.4% a month ago. but a separate survey of businesses found only a net gain of 36,000 new jobs last month, far too few even to keep pace with population growth. we parse the numbers now with david leonhardt, economics reporter and columnist for "the new york times." >> so it's strange report, and it comes at a time when everybody is looking for signs. where we are. >> it is a strange report. i've been writing about the job report now for about 11 years. and i think is the strangest one i've ever seen. because sometimes the two reports seem to show different things but you can construct a story that makes sense. in this case, you really can't do that. and so what we're left wondering is which is telling the truth. the survey of households which looks more optimistic or the survey of businesses in which the government goes out and says how many people work at your place of em employ. >> brown: to describe what these two do, one is really households and asks people are you working. >> that's right. and the disadvantage with that survey is it's much smaller. it involves many fewer people. because if you think about that, when you go door-to-door you capture
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fewer jobs than if you are going to a business and saying how many people do you employ. >> brown: now in the household one, the one where it gives us that number, right now it's 9%, one factor we often talking about, and we've talked about it before, sometimes it is the discouraged worker factor, right. >> that's right. >> brown: the people who have stopped looking for work. they are no longer counted. so the number goes down but that's actually not necessarily a good thing. >> that's exactly right. >> brown: is that i a factor this time. >> it is but it is nowhere near the whole story. we do have people who moved from officially employed to unrofxly unemployed which mean these are not counted and that makings sense because there are so many people out of work for so long, 6 months, 8 months, 2 years. at a certain people these people give up lookinging for work and are no longer counted as unemployed. but the unemployment rate in the last two months has declined 8%-- 8/10 of a percentage point. by no means is that all discouraged workers. it is a weird situation where the report seems to be picking up jobs that the business survey is to thic
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pickinging up. we don't know if they are really there or not. there also seems to be data issues which suggest that in fact a few months ago unemployment wasn't as bad as we thought then but it hasn't really come down as much as we thought now. >> brown: then there is another issue, the weather. >> yes. it is winter, right. >> yeah. >> brown: so explain that. >> if you want to tell a hopeful story, this is really your only chance. even with all these mixed signals. >> brown: go ahead. i'm sure everybody would like to hear that one. >> would you say okay, the household survey looked good in december. and we're going to believe it because at turning point sometimes the survey of businesses isn't that good because a lot of new jobs at turning points in the economy come from businesses that are just starting. and the labor department doesn't know how to find a business that didn't exist a few months ago. so maybe the household survey is picking those up. >> brown: in other words, the business survey just isn't picks up, maybe there is a turning point. >> right. >> brown: but the business survey is behind. >> that's right. >> brown: and hasn't caught it yet. >> if you started a new company tomorrow the labor department wouldn't know to ask you how many people are are you were employing and
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if you multiply that by thousands you can could have a significant number of people working at firms like that. >> brown: is there a reason to think that maybe the case. >> it usually happens. and we seem to be at a turning point. so it's not awe completely out of the question factor. but so if you believe what the household survey was actually good and if you believe that it was right in december, then you tell yourself well january, had all these storms. and so it was artificially depressed. and so maybe, in fact, the job market is getting bettinger. lots of other indicators suggest the job market should be getting better. so maybe it is getting bettinger. but then you still have to come back to the point of if we tell this optimistic story which requires a leap of faith, we still have to long until the job market is actually-- healthy. >> brown: in that regard the largest context is this continuing debate over whether we are seeing what is called structural unemployment, right. and it has implications not only for the people who are unemployed but for policymakers. explain the debate. >> yeah, so the debate breaks down somewhat traditionally right left. you hear more from the right and businesses that we have
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a lot of structural unemployment meaning we have jobs we want to fill. but we don't have workers who are qualified to fill them. >> brown: jobs are out there but the people are not ready to take them. >> that's right. there is a mismatch between job opens and work ares. and so that's why we don't see a lot of hiring. and thus things like stimulus wouldn't help very much because if the workers don't match the needs you have, you are not going to hire even if there is more consumer spending. then on the other side which you tend to hear more from the left or labor is that no, in fact, there is a big shortfall in what is called aggregate demand. people just aren't spending nufing. so if we can prevent government cuts or have stimulus it will make a difference. >> brown: and get businesses to start hiring. >> yes, again. so the strongest evidence for the structural unemployment is the fact that the gap between what college educated workers and everyone else are making, is widening. so it does seem to be a factor. but it's a little bit hard to make the case that it is the dominant factor because unemployment has ris sown much, so quickly, why was it that we didn't have this big structural problem just a
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couple years ago. >> brown: briefly, this is sort of an academic mystery, a policy mystery, it is one that has a lot of implications. >> yeah, and there is a huge amount of uncertainty about the job market right now. the thing we know is that it's not good and it's to the going to be good for a very long time. the uncertainty is how many years will it be before it feels healthy again. >> brown: david leonhardt 69 new york sometimes, thank you. >> lehrer: . >> still to come, how much influence does the >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour: how much influence does the u.s. have in egypt? shields and brooks; plus, president ronald reagan and first lady nancy reagan. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: wall street swung back and forth on the jobs report for much of the day. in the end, the dow jones industrial average finished with a gain of nearly 30 points to close at 12,092. the nasdaq rose 15 points to close at 2,769. for the week, the dow gained more than 2%; the nasdaq rose 3%. an official state of emergency was in force in new mexico today as bitter cold gripped the state for a fourth day.
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natural gas service was cut off to thousands of people as usage soared and power blackouts hindered delivery. state government offices were shut down, and many local agencies and schools were also closed. a new winter storm hit texas, just as super bowl weekend arrived. the dallas area got up to five inches of snow, making driving dangerous and canceling hundreds of flights. that was bound to snarl travel plans for more than 100,000 fans expected for sunday's nfl championship game. at the game site, cowboys stadium, six people were hurt today by ice falling off the roof. the astronaut husband of arizona congresswoman gabriel giffords will return to space, after all. mark kelly announced today he'll command the final voyage of space shuttle "endeavor," set to begin on april 19. he said his wife is recovering well after being shot in the head last month in tucson. she's now at a rehab center in houston, where kelly spoke this afternoon. >> she's made progress every day.
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so about two weeks ago i started going through the process myself of what would i need in order to get back with my crew to continue training. and consideringing a bunch of other factor its including how what gabrielle would want me to do and what her parents and her family and my family would like, you know, i ultimately made the decision that i would like to return. >> sreenivasan: kelly's flight will be the next to last one for the shuttle program. a federal lawsuit unsealed today accused the new york mets' owners of ignoring the crimes of financier bernard madoff. the suit was filed by a trustee working for madoff's victims. it said the mets made $300 million in false profits from his ponzi scheme. the trustee is also suing j.p. morgan-chase. court documents released thursday said the bank had multiple warnings about madoff. both the bank and the mets owners denied the allegations. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy.
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>> woodruff: we return now to egypt, and the difficult diplomatic challenge the u.s. faces there. to examine that, we're joined by michele dunne, a former specialist on middle east affairs at the state department and on the national security council staff. she is now senior associate at the carnegie endowment for international peace and editor of the online journal, "the arab reform bulletin." marc lynch, director of the middle east studies program at george washington university. he also writes a blog about the middle east for foreignpolicy.com. and hisham melhem, washington bureau chief for al arabiya tv, an arab language satellite news channel. thank you all for being here. there's so many questions at this stage. as we watch events unfold in egypt. let me start with you, hisham what contacts do we know are there going on right now between washington and cairo? >> there are contacts on the highest levels, particularly
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with the new deputy of pew barack and with the military. i would like to listen the conversations between robert gates and the minister. >> woodruff: the defense secretary. >> exactly, yeah. souliman and the others are very well-known to policymakers hear in washington. they've been involved in dealing with them on security issues, arab israeli conflict, combatting terrorism. so they know each other extremely well. and the united states can kin fluence the egyptian army. the egyptian army knows that they cannot survive without continuing that kind of lifeline between egypt and the american military here. so there is that toolbox that includes this kind of special relationship. and then the hope here is that there will be a transitional period. there is a new group of intellectuals, the wisemen, who are trying to you know, mediate.
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>> woodruff: and let me turn to you marc lynch, what more you can add to-- what are the context-- contacts who is talking to whom. >> i think they are trying to send messages by every channel. you have had the public statements by secretary clinton and by president obama. you've had private phone calls to directly to mubarak and the people around him. to people in the military. they have had contacts the opposition. they're talking to everybody. and i think they're sending a pretty clear message at this point. i think maybe before you got to the horrible attacks on the protestors, on wednesday i think that there was more wiggle room there in terms of what we could be offering in terms of what an ordinarily transition might mean. but after the president went on tv and said it's unacceptable that you attack, that you use violence against the protestors and then the whole world saw what happened, i think now there is really no choice. i think the message now has to be hosni mubarak really does have to go now. obama doesn't want to say that because he doesn't want to be in a position of dick stating egyptian
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politicsment but i think at this point when we hear the words ordinarily transition beginning now i think itological has to begin with president mubarak stepping down. >> woodruff: michele dunn what is your understanding of the message president obama is second privately and publicly to president mubarak and the people and him. >> i think president obama was very skillful, actually, in the statement he made today to talk about a meaningful transition, and what i think is going on, hisham mentioned this wisemen committee, that is meeting with vice president souliman. they are trying to broker a compromise between the sort of coalition groups behind the demonstrations and sulimanned. and what this would involve would be mubarak giving up his duties, becoming a ceremonial president, handing over his real powers to the vice president. and remaining as a ceremonial president for the remainder of his term which is until september. now the question is, is this
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acceptable to the opposition. because this is not actually the opposition negotiating with suliman, this is this sort of civil society committee that is trying to broker between the two sides. >> woodruff: so who are they? i mean who is in this committee, hisham, do we know -- >> we have people like intellectuals, i mean public personals. >> woodruff: people who are respected in egyptian society. >> people who write, people who are respected, yes. but i agree with michele, i'm not sure whether this will be acceptable to the demonstrators in the streets. many of them are still insisting on mubarak leaving. i mean there is a huge symbolism in seeing the far owe as they-- pharoah as they refer to him getting outing of the stage and reluctantly, with suliman who is a part of the same regime, a man who is not necessarily, the nicest history. so it is going to involve a
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great deal of debate, a great deal of involvement. as long as we don't have violence, i think there is some wriggle room. i don't think it's goinging to last for weeks. we are look for days before you see really the evolution of the shape of that kind of transition we're talking about. >> woodruff: marc lynch s it your sense that the power center is already shifted. you heard the president all but same the words lame duck today that mubarak, president mubarak has said i'm leaving. and he should be worrying about his legacy. so has the power shifted away from him? >> i think so. and frankly, i'm surprised that it is taking as long as it has for the transition to take place. but i think that now what we're seeing is that the real questions, the really big questions are going to be what kind of egypt emerges after you get this transition. and i think the president and his administration have been really focused on that. everything that they've said has talked about this being a meaningful transition which includes real reform, the participation of opposition parties, constitutional changes.
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i think that it's very important that we don't get overly fixated as much as we are on mubarak leaving but to realize that it doesn't matter if he leaves if the same system is left behind. but his leaving is really important for the protestors because they have no real leader. and that's the one demand that everybody can agree on and nobody can negotiate that away. there's no one in a position in the square to say anything less than that would be acceptable. >> woodruff: so how do you see that working itself out, michele dunn, and i want to, you know, ask all of you, how much influence does the united states really have at this point? >> i really think at this point that the obama administration has sent very clear messages to the egyptian military. are you responsible for stability. if we see violence against the protestors, don't tell us rogue elements, you are responsible. and they sent that message and we saw that today. the protests were peaceful and violence wasn't used. so that message-- the u.s. has influence in that regard,
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i think. in terms of the fine points of what kind of a deal is going to be worked out here, i think the obama administration is take a step back a little bit. i mean if, you know, if it's acceptable to the egyptian opposition parties for mubarak to leave the presidency in the sense of no longer having any official duties and being moved off to his residents at the beach, or something, then why should the obama administration get out in front of that and say that isn't good enough. i think he's being a little bit careful here to say that, you know, that there needs to be a transition but not spell it out too clearly so that the egyptian parties can work out something. >> woodruff: quickly on this question of u.s. influence, how much and who, is there anyone on the outside who has influence. we felt the saudis, united arab emirates sending signals they don't want mubarak to step down immediately. >> no, no, what i was in davos and met many of those people from the gulf in particularly, were extremely concerned. one was even in a state of
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fright. at this stage what they want is no chaosment they don't want a power vacuum. >> woodruff: the other arab leaders. >> arab monarchyes from morocco to saudi arabia, what they want is a quick end to this particular period. without mubarak, i mean. they realize mubarak cannot remain in power. what they don't want is an open-ended period of uncertainty and chaos. that could be filled by iran, by the islamists, by others. and that is really what they are harping on. the united states still has a lot of influence. there is a lot of soft power on the american side. the business community in egypt, the wealthy, the extremely waley may not be happy because they are benefited from the status quo but all businesspeople, you know, middle class, professionals, they believe in, that the united states economically needs-- egypt needs that economic relationship with the west. and again, the military. you might end up with a situation where the military realizes if we shoot at unarmed civilian, not only the obama administration would turn its back on us, the congress will impose military sanctions on us the way it did with turkey which
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which was a nato power in 1974. >> woodruff: mar, liferning, whom and what should we be keeping an eye on right now this is an important weekend coming up. >> it really is. today was a decisive day because many people worried that after the violence, that it would knock the protests back and that the regime had regained its balance. today's amazing protests and the sheer number of people and the peaceful nature of the protests strikes me as decisive. so i think we should be watching the messages coming from washington, was's happening in cairo. i think that is going to happen soon. but your question about u.s. influence is an important one. we do have a lot of influence. we're using it well. but if you look at mugabe a dictator determined to stay in power can resist outside pressure for a long time. obama's message today was clearly aimed at mubarak saying don't go down in history at mugabe, the man who destroyed your country. >> woodruff: we will leave there and continue to watch closely, michele dunn, thank you, mar, lynch, thank you. hisham melhem, thank you.
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>> lehrer: and to the analysis of shields and brooks-- syndicated columnist mark shields, "new york times" columnist david brooks. mark, do you agree that the united states has a lot of power on this egypt situation and is using it well? >> i think the united states has more interest than it has control over the situation. in the final analysis, it will be the decision of the egyptian people. we can dry and shape and influence that but we can't control it. >> what they have done thus far has been smart. >> i think that yes, i think they got caught at the outset. they were a little slow to respond. an there is, when are you in bed with somebody for 30 years whether it is trujillo or pinochet or anybody else, you start to look at his virtues and ignore many of his defects domestically. and there was that unwillingness as mentioned in the discussion with judy
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to upset the saudis as well as the united arab emirates that we were going to just dos aside somebody who had been an ally and a supporter and a major help to the united states in mubarak at the first hint of trouble. but i think then i think they then got their footing and realized that this was a popular uprising, genuine, authentic, widespread and we could not be on the wrong side of history. >> lehrer: do you agree, david, that at least now the united states is using its power well. >> now they are. it took them a long time to get thered the administers comes in, president obama su a follower of george h.w. bush, and we saw that philosophy reflected in what hillary clinton said a week and a half ago when she said it was a stable regime, when joe biden refused to say that mubarak was a dictator but they kaupt. as friday they made progressment i think over the last weekend, saturday
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and sunday they really made the switch. and they said he's got to go. that's clearly the situation. and i'm really impressed by how quickly they moved off their original position. and i think the influence may maybe substantial. we don't know this i know many people who were extremely nervous about today, that thought today was tiananmen day, that they would crackdown. >> lehrer: chaos day. >> and it could be that our conversations from the pentagon to the egyptian military played a big role in preventing that. we don't know that yet. but i think our influence in that kind-of-way, in those conversations potentially substantive. >> lehrer: is there a risk involved beyond the immediate that the end result may be mubarak going but who knows what is going to happen after he leaves, and the u.s. is taking that risk but so be it, it's worth it. >> first of all t is our ideal. we believe in democracy. and these people are calling for it. in the most responsible, possible way. second, there are things we can do. the first and most pressing need is to create political parties there.
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and the u.s. and other western powers can cheap do that. the egyptian society is not like iraq after saddam. it's a much mohr stable society it has problems and the human development record lists it, i think it is about 100 out of 180 nations. it's not a wealthy society but it's not a basket case. and there are professional societies, organizations that are trying to come too being that have been crushed by the government. there are unions that are sort of in proto form. so there are lots of aspects of civil society that can be built on. and so in parts's up to us in the outside world to help those structures, those institutions form between now and whenever the election is, and we could still, you know, the crucial thing we learned this from the 85 oughtocracies that have fallen. the crucial meet is not what when they fall but the subsequent months to create structure to create a real country. >> lehrer: and the military, in he shall in egypt's case say strong force in maintaining the post time as well as maintaining order
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now, correct. >> absolutely. i found it rather interesting and i guess encouraging politically in this country that john mccain and john kerry two former presidential nominees have sponsored a joint resolution which the senate approved last night calling for the orderly transfer to a caretaker government. but challenging and really calling upon the egyptian military to demonstrate the professionalism that it is capable of, been trained for. and it has been an incredibly intimate and close relationship with the united states military over the years. i mean, there has been training back and forth. they know each other at the lower grade officer level and all the way up to the command level. so in that sense, they are positive. just one little point of personal privilege on joe biden without did take a hit for not being able to say dictator. but in the united states poll tings, i mean it's always been, if someone is on our side he is a strong
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man. if he is on the other side he is a dick state-- dictator. that has sort of been the nomenclature throughout. all the guys who were such stalwart anti-communists, the marcoes of the world, they were dictators when they fell. >> strongman is a bad word too. but this -- >> i'm not arguing with policy, i'm just -- >> i'm not blaming biden. they told him what to say. but you know, we had a policy. i think when president obama wanted to reach out to other countries, the natural thing was to reach out to other governments. and maybe not pay as much attention to other people. and i hope one of the lessons the obama administration draws from this is that you really do have to pay attention not only to the conversation you are having with the government, but to how that government is treating its own people. and that has to be a big, big part of your factor when you are thinking about government. >> lehrer: let's go to the big story of the day, mark, is of course the job figures today. we heard what was just explained, it depends how you look at it, it may be good but it may still be bad
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no matter what. how do you see. >> david understands this a lot better. he studied it a lot longerment i just simply say this, 36,000 jobs is less than unacceptable. i mean statistics, i don't care you talk about 9, 4, 89-- stock market hitting 12,000 and confidence being up. statistics don't bleed. percentages don't have children and get discouraged. and that is what, i mean, when you have a economy right now that is to the producing jobs, the people who have worked with a long work record, we're not talking about people who have been out of the workforce forever, who haven't worked, who want to work, and it is really a serious and grievous national problem. and it just comes back that you and i have talked about it in the past. do any of these people on capitol hill know anybody who is serving in iraq or
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afghanistan or been a grunt on the ground, does anybody know anybody who has been laid off, who wants to work, has worked all of his or her life. boy, the lack of urgency about this really does, i think it is unsettling. >> i think there is urgency. i think everyone knows someone who has been laid off and knows if are you in journalism you do. but the question is what do you do short term. and it's just very hard. we had huge stimulus bills. we have had another big stimulus bill as tax reform over the interim between the election. so we've spent a lot of money. but it turns out to be very hard to create real jobs short term when people in the business community are very scared, when you have the aftershock of a financial crisis which historically leads to long periods of unemployment. i am a little more bullish about what is going to happen. just based on conversations with people in the business community. people in the business community have been spending the last years trying to
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consolidate, trying to increase productivity without really expanding. and yet you have conversations with people in our community now and you begin to hear them talking about expanding. and about hiring and seeing new markets. david leonhardt put it, we are at a transition moment. and the economy does feel like it's getting stronger. but if you look at the record of these situations it's just going to take a long time before we really create a lot of jobs. >> we lost 8 million jobs in this country in the last three years. >> i know, but i mean 36,000. and we need 125,000 of unsustained even just to keep. the classic textbook is coming, ken rogoff have been on this program, they looked at 500 years of financial crises and the unemployment shocks after that for likes six years out, seven, eight years out it lasts a long time. >> lehrer: speaking of shocks, is there-- is it going to be a shutdown of the federal government when it comes in a few days or a few weeks when congress finally comes to grips with
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spending and the deficit and raising the tap on-- the cap on the debt. >> let me give you the classic answer, twt, time will tell, jim. >> lehrer: oh. >> it could go either way. >> the reality is we've got a couple of really chicken moments where each side is coming directly straight on to the other. march 4th is when the continuing resolution that funds the government expires. that going to be the first real test. and there is a real polit in the majority party in the house. there are about 170 republicans who really want to go hard and heavy on cuts and mitch mcdonnell, the republican senate leader gave the democrats an opening when he said he would not state unequivvly that he would support the rise.
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in the debt ceiling an vote for it so that has given each side a chance to roll out its artillery and that is what we are doing right now it say very real question of how deep these cuts are going to because it is only in 16% of the budget which is the discretionary spending. >> that is the crucial issue. >> lehrer: republicans going to shut down. >> no, no, no. -- told me and i million people we are not shutting down the government. they will walk into the debt ceiling fight knowing they are going to compromise. they will compromise. my problem is which mark just referenced what are we going to cut. because neither party has the cuts to cut medicare and social security and defense, maybe defense but not the big entitlements. we're goinging to cut all the little things that one don't make any difference to the deficit. and do actually programs that actually work. so early childhood education will probably get a whack. funding for the corporation for public broadcastinging will probably get a whack. national science national institutes for health, these are great programs probably bipartisan support, they will get a back because we don't have the cuts to tackle the things that would make a difference to the
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deficit. >> lehrer: do you agree with that? >> i do, i think democrats are willing to take on defense but there is no question that they are circling and it's-- you go first, on the entitlements. >> lehrer: -- >> i do feel a sense that there is kind of a revitallization of the simpson bulls. all of a sudden people say maybe that wasn't the answer but dammit, they did at least confront and engage. >> there a movement on capitol hill by mark warner-- a democrat and a republican to get some senators and say let's get serious about this. we will have tax increases, some entitlement cuts and both are getting pressure from their own party. but there is some building momentum. and i hope all the people without want to save great programs like early shild hood education and corporation of public broadcast don't just plead oh don't cut me, don't cut me, actually say cut that. we're going to get together, and say you cut entitlements and save that. because if you don't tackle the entitlements issue all these good programs are
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going to get the shaft. >> lehrer: okay. on that wonderful word, we're going to leave it thank you both very much. >> woodruff: and finally tonight, sunday is the 100th anniversary of the birth of ronald reagan, and the beginning of a year-long celebration of his life and legacy. the newshour marks the occasion with a look at the political instincts that made mr. reagan such an effective presidential candidate in 1980. in an interview with jim in 1989, the former president talked about debating president jimmy carter. here's an excerpt. >> president cart err said that his strategy going into that debate was to show you-- show the people that you were not that well informed on national security and for answer fairs policy. did you know that goinging in, that that was his target? >> no, i didn't really know that. but i think he was a little off base in that. because as governor, first of all i was governor of a state that if it were a
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nation, would be the 7th ranking economic power in the world, california. but also president nixon had asked me on a number of occasions to represent him on trips abroad. and i had been in 18 countries and actually meeting with the heads of state of 18 countries while i was still a governor. and i think that i had a pretty good insight in to our foreign policy and those foreign affairs. >> that debate is remembered for several things. one them is your line there you go again. was, there you go again, a line that just came to you spontaneously or was it something that you had worked with on. >> no. it just seemed to be the thing to say in what he was saying up there. because it was to me it felt like kind of rep at thiscious. something we had heard before. >> the other thing that came
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out of that debate was president carter's statement about his daughter amy and that he had talked to his daughter about what the big issue was. and she had said nuclear proliferation. nuclear weapons, nuclear disarmament. what, did you-- when he said that as you were standing on thereon the stage were you aware of the fact that he had made a terrible mistake? >> it seemed to me had. because the whole thing sounded, and i think you could klm feel an attitude from the audience on it that the president was going to make a major policy based on what a child told him. and i'm sure he didn't have that in mind but it's what-- that's the way it came out. and i was prepared to say to the people i promise them i wouldn't ask my kids what i should do. >> that's how you felt that night. he knew that when he said it. >> yes. >> generally how important do you think that debate was to your having defeated president carter? >> i think well, i think
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there were some things. as a matter of fact, i think a very telling line was at the very end. debate, when i told the people that if they believe they were better off than they were four years ago, then they had no other choice but to vote for my opponent. but if they thought they weren't better off and that there were things that could be done, i would like to offer myself as the candidate for their selection. and i did feel that there were very definite shortcomings that, you know, we had been, we were being told by our government before that election that we should lower our sights, that never again would we live at the level that we had live as americans. that the world was different now and that we must be willing to tighten our belts
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and not have the things we used to have. my philosophy and my belief was that there was a long way for us to go in improving what we had ever known before. that this country of ours was a country of constant improvement and so i thought that what my whole approach was based on, the promise of a better america. >> former president reagan speaking in 19 will 9-- 1989. now to the political instincts of the other half of the reagan team, his wife nancy. in a new pbs documentary about her life, i examine the former first lady's role as her husband's confidante, and behind the scenes strategist. a role that began long before he was elected president. >> in 1976 in an audacious move reagan challenges sitting president gerald ford for the republican
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party nomination. >> nothing quite like this has ever happened before in the history of american politics. >> you had a convention that was almost split down the middle. it was not certain that gerald ford was going to win. so feelings were running high and bette ford and her family were sitting across the hall. and there starts to be a dualing applaud kind of thing between my mother and betty ford. >> so the battle of the wives has been joined again. the second night in a row. nancy reagan at one end, mrs. ford at the other end. >> will the delegates piece take their seat. >> it was a battle for the soul of the republican party. but it was also a battle for who the first lady was going to represent. would it be a forward-looking woman who would speak her own
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positions publicly? or was it going to be a woman that you never saw what she wanted other than she wanted this for her husband. >> ford wins the nomination but only by a slim margin. reagan emerges with a stronger national profile. when he runs for president, four years later the public still sees nancy as a traditional housewife. but away from the cameras, she's deeply involved in the hiring and firing of campaign staff. >> she knew her husband was very hesitant to fire people. he didn't like conflict. he was intensely loyal to people around him. but sometimes some of those people weren't serving him well. >> i don't know whether it's just blocking things out or he just doesn't see things. he knew the overall picture but he didn't know of all my
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meetings in the back halls and things like that. >> she was the personnel director. she was a human resource its department. she made decisions on who was going to be around him from the campaign to the governor's office, to the white house. that was her role. >> on election night in 1980 recognize an trounces then president jimmy carter sweeping 44 states. >> it was a very early call for ronald regular and as the next president. >> the results come in so quickly the reagans are caught off guard. >> it a recognize an landslide. >> i had the television turned up and i heard it looks like ronald reagan has won. well, i jumped out of the tub, grabbed aid towel, knocked on the shower door, told ronnie to get out. and he got out and he grabbed a towel and there we are, dripping weingt, listening to somebody say
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ronald reagan is the next president of the united states. >> the documentary, nancy reagan, the role of a lifetime, airs on most pbs stations starting this weekend. >> lehrer: again, the major developments of the day: up to 200,000 egyptians filled central cairo, demanding that president mubarak step down now. in washington, president obama talked of a transition that begins immediately. he said he hopes mubarak will make "the right decision." and the u.s. economy added just 36,000 jobs in january, but the unemployment rate fell to 9%, in part because thousands of people stopped looking for work. and to hari sreenivasan for what's on the newshour online. hari. >> sreenivasan: watch more of jim's interview with president reagan, and find slideshows, essays and more on nancy reagan's life. on egypt, read what diplomatic cables released by wikileaks reveal about mubarak's place on the world stage. and we talked to paul solman for more insight on today's job numbers. find that on his "making sense"
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page. plus on "art beat," there's a narrated slideshow of an art collection in an unexpected place, the dallas stadium where this weekend's super bowl will be held. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. judy. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on monday, we'll have a report from margaret warner in cairo. i'm judy woodruff. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. "washington week" can be seen later this evening on most pbs stations. we'll see you online, and again here monday evening. have a nice weekend. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> i mean, where would we be without small businesses? >> we need small businesses. >> they're the ones that help drive growth. >> like electricians, mechanics, carpenters. >> they strengthen our communities. >> every year, chevron spends
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billions with small businesses that goes right to the heart of local communities, providing jobs, keeping people at work. they depend on us. >> the economy depends on them. >> and we depend on them. >> the engine that connects us. and the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and...
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this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org
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